CIRCUIT OF THE SUMMER HILLS 



long ; they make the fields friendly, the hills eloquent, 

 the shade-trees idyllic. I wake up to hear the farmer 

 summoning them from the field in the dewy summer 

 dawns, and I listen for his call to them on the tran- 

 quil afternoons. One season an especially musical 

 voice did the evening calling — a trained voice from 

 beyond the hills. What a pleasure it was as we 

 swung in our hammocks under the apple-trees to 

 hear the free, sonorous summons, and to see the 

 response of the herd in many-colored lines converg- 

 ing down the slope to the barway! 



When the meadows have got,ten a new carpet of 

 tender grass in September, and the cows are free to 

 range in them, a new series of moving pictures greets 

 the eye. The grazing forms have a finer setting now, 

 and contentment and satisfaction are in every move- 

 ment. How they sweep off the tender herbage, into 

 what artistic groups they naturally fall, what pic- 

 tures of peace and plenty they present! When they 

 lie down to ruminate, Emerson's sentence comes to 

 mind: "And the cattle lying on the ground seem to 

 have great and tranquil thoughts." As a matter of 

 fact, I suppose no more vacant mind could be found 

 in the universe than that of the cow when she is 

 reposing in a field chewing her cud. But she is the 

 cause of tranquil if not of great thoughts in the 

 lookers-on, and that is enough. Tranquillity attends 

 her wherever she goes; it beams from her eyes, and 

 lingers in her footsteps. 



